Spoilers!
by Mizuki1988
Summary: The TARDIS decides to meddle with the time stream, and a lost soul is saved on board in the most awkward manner possible… Library fix-it with a twist.
1. Prologue

**A/N:** This must be the silliest story I have ever written. I'm not sure whether it's crack, angst, humour, drama or romance, or all of the above… But it's meant to be fun, if not entirely serious… It'll be complete in six parts :) Please enjoy!

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><p><strong>Spoilers!<strong>

****_By Mizuki  
><em>

**Prologue**

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><p>"Right then! Off we go!"<p>

And off they went, giddy with exuberance, working together as a team, bringing their beloved planet back into orbit. The TARDIS hummed with appreciation, yielding her powers into their capable hands and enjoying a feeling that would never again come to pass. She could see into all of time, and she knew with the utmost certainty that this was to be her last ever voyage with six pilots; and if she had any say in it, it was going to be glorious and magnificent.

She reached out and gently touched each soul around her console and thrived in the smiles that bloomed across their faces. She felt the brave, forthright Jackie Tyler, tickled Mickey Smith's loyal heart and embraced the wonderful Sarah Jane Smith. Brilliant Martha Jones grinned at her caress and the impossible Captain Jack Harkness gave her handle a friendly grope.

And then there was Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, the Defender of the Earth, that amazing human girl who had managed to turn her beloved Time Lord back from the path of destruction. The TARDIS enveloped her in warmth, whispering her gratitude straight into her heart, along with a message that courage and an open mind would bring her the happiness she deserved.

Then she turned to the Doctor-Donna, two halves of a whole, so tragic, forever destined to be separated. To the human Doctor she conveyed her love and understanding, and bid him to be patient and curious in this new, completely impossible adventure. For Donna she only shed golden tears and the red-haired woman felt them deep behind her eyes and her Time Lord mind sighed with her in sorrow.

And finally, she turned to her Doctor, the mad man to her box, her stolen Time Lord, and she cried for all of his losses and his pain, and murmured to him words of encouragement. For even though the times were hard now, it too would pass, giving way to a future brighter than he could imagine.

There was something she had to rectify first, however.

For despite the number of people within her walls, there was still one child missing. A child of whom she was especially fond of, a child that was both blessed and cursed, out of sync and exactly in the right place. A child of the TARDIS, and if she was being smug about it, the best one of them all, at that.

This six-pilot voyage was special in more ways than one. Apart from being the smoothest ride she would ever experience again, it was also the only time she could put her little pet-project to work without worrying about getting everyone safely to their destination. The Doctor, bless him, was ever such a bad driver.

Content that her pilots would do the job properly, she set about sparing her beloved mad man unnecessary pain. It was, after all, the least she could do. Fueled by love, she reached out into time and space and put the events into motion.

All across time several things happened all at once. A new, bigger, more advanced sonic screwdriver popped out of the spacey-wacey, glittering TARDIS console, a little green light preserved inside. Centuries earlier, the very same green light detached itself from its carrier. Eons later, the blue doors opened to reveal the Singing Towers of Darillium. In a different corner of the universe, the same – but already empty – screwdriver and a worn-out blue diary dematerialized from an abandoned library. And a few years earlier, a woman disappeared in a glare of white light.

The very same light which now enveloped the organic interior of a blue box that just wouldn't let go of her child.


	2. Part One

**A/N: **Hi guys :) Thanks for all of the alerts and reviews :) Here's the second installment :)

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><p><strong>Spoilers!<strong>

_By Mizuki_

**Part One**

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><p>Sarah Jane was the one who saw her first. She squinted her eyes and bit back a shout of surprise as a figure appeared out of the light, falling to her knees. The others caught on quickly, pausing in their cheering and hugging, to stare at the intruder in stupefied silence. There was a brief moment of inaction, and then…<p>

"What?"

"Doctor, who's that?"

"What's goin' on?"

"Doctor, seriously, who IS that?"

"What?"

"No way!"

"Doctor!"

The woman in the white space-suit lifted her curly-haired head and regarded the scene without understanding. Then, as sudden as her appearance, an angry frown descended upon her face.

"What did you do?" she demanded, shooting daggers at the Doctor. "You infuriating man, doesn't a girl deserve the dignity of a good sacrifice? I knew that the younger you got, the bigger was your ego, but this is really pushing it!"

Mickey and Jackie exchanged shocked glances as the Doctor was finally rendered speechless, standing at the console like a six foot tall rod with a mouth that opened and closed without emitting any sounds.

Donna was the first to recover.

"Oi, watch it, Mrs. He-Doesn't-Know-Me-Yet!" she snapped, striding over to the woman still kneeling on the floor. "Show some gratitude! He's saved your sorry ass!"

"I didn't do a – "

"Donna," said the woman with a sigh of wonder. "You're alive!"

"Yeah, and so are you! Why don't you act a little bit more decent about it?"

"But you're alive! That means that it worked, but then why am I not dead?"

Donna paused and blinked, her human outrage retreating and allowing her Time Lord brain to process the available data. She fell silent, staring at the curly-haired newcomer with a fish face similar to the Doctor's. Rose decided that it was high time for some answers and if Donna was not up for the challenge of obtaining them, then she would have to take over.

"Who are you?" she asked loudly, her tone accusatory, and then felt a pang of resentment as her question was thoroughly ignored. The woman turned towards the Doctor and her face split into an awed grin.

"You impossible man! Were all of those people returned? All four thousand and twenty two?"

The Doctor nodded wordlessly.

"Oh, sweetie!" she gushed. "How did you manage to do that?"

He swallowed and then cleared his throat. "I – I didn't do anything, actually. You did. You brought all of those people back when you short-circuited the hard-drive through your brain."

The woman frowned. "I remember that… But that would have killed me! How in the name of sanity did you manage to save me?"

"I didn't," he said simply. "We-ell, I did, sort of, later, save you into the library computer, but I didn't save you properly, no. You made that a tiny little bit difficult with the handcuffs!" he glared at her, before shaking his head. "Anyway. River, I watched you burn into nothing before my very eyes. And I'm so, so sorry, but you being here is completely impossible!"

The woman – River, apparently – regarded him with pursed lips. "And yet here I am. So if you didn't save me, then who – hang on! You _saved_ me into the library computer?"

"Yes, well, I uploaded your data ghost into CAL. I thought it was a brilliant move, myself," he sniffed.

River, unfortunately, wasn't particularly impressed. She was seething with anger, ready to burst. "You _uploaded_ me into the computer? Whatever gave you the idea that I wanted to be uploaded into that bloody system?" she hissed through clenched teeth.

The Doctor stepped back a bit as she heaved herself up from the floor and gave him a cold stare.

"Now, listen – it wasn't exactly my idea… Well, sort of mine, but future mine, you understand, the future me, the one that gave you the screwdriver, he put your neural relay inside, you see."

"And you just decided to stick it into the plug, didn't you," she grit out. "And how on earth did he manage to get it in the first place? Wouldn't it have burned into nothing together with the rest of me?"

There was a moment of silence.

"The lady does have a point, Doctor," said Jack merrily, sauntering over. "Captain Jack Harkness, nice to mee – "

"Hands off!"

Jack jerked away and looked at the Doctor in reproach. "I was only saying hello!"

The Doctor, taken aback by his outburst, passed a hand through his hair. "Yeah, right, sorry."

"Professor River Song," said the woman, sending the Doctor a dark look, and then turning to Jack with a furtive wink. "And let me say that it was _very _nice to meet you back in the day, Captain."

Intrigued, he cocked an eyebrow. "I'm not sure I remember meeting you before, Professor."

"Oh, you would have remembered it if you had. And I assure you, you most certainly will once you do."

"River!" exclaimed the Doctor, scandalized.

"What?" the question was delivered with scathing mockery. "First I'm not allowed a career, and now you're saying that you get to prance about the universe with pretty girls and I'm supposed to stay clear of all the fun? Sweetie, you're _very _good, but not _that_ good."

A stunned silence stretched into oblivion. The Doctor's cheeks flushed and he took a step back, trying not to notice Jack's choked laughter. He hazarded a glance at Rose and saw her staring at River with undisguised horror, which very quickly melted into betrayal and outrage. His hearts clenched in pain.

"Anyway, back to the matter at hand," River said, before taking a deep, calming breath. "Why am I not dead?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" asked Martha, coming to stand next to Jack. You could always count on her to keep a level head in the most impossible of circumstances.

Several emotions crossed River's face, none of them pleasant. "I wired myself in, waited for the countdown, talked the idiot out of his stupidity, and then connected the cables. I'd expected pain, but there was nothing, just a bright light… and then I found myself here."

Martha frowned. "And what were you planning to do, exactly?"

"Give up her memory space to download four thousand and twenty two people from a sentient computer, and then reboot it so it wouldn't self-destruct," interjected the Doctor, his face twisting into an expression that Martha recognized as guilt. "Which was my job! But she knocked me out and took my place!"

Martha grinned with appreciation. "Really?"

"Oh, yes," River smirked. "And then I handcuffed him to a pole."

"Oh, you're good!" Martha cried in delight. "I always wanted to meet someone who could knock some sense into him! I'm Martha Jones, by the way, very nice to meet you!"

The woman broke into an excited smile. "Martha Jones! Oh, this is brilliant!"

"You've heard of me then?"

"Of course I've heard all about you! I've always wanted to meet you." She took a couple of glances around the room and frowned. "Why are there so many people on the TAR - Oh, this must be the Medusa Cascade!" She fell silent, surveying their faces pensively, and then spoke again, with reverence. "It went down in history as an Ood song, you know, very moving. And a myth, of gods who towed the Earth back home with a rope of stars. Might want to write a paper on that, since I'm here and alive… Maybe something about how the god turned out to be an arrogant prick!"

The Doctor's companions were well accustomed to experiencing things that defied imagination. A blue box that was bigger on the inside? Piece of cake. Time-travel? Old news. Saving the world from green, farting aliens? Well, bit of a stretch, that, but still understandable. Even a strange person appearing on the TARDIS out of the blue was nothing that would phase them, (Donna, wedding dress, Christmas? Been there, done that!). But this was something no one had been expecting.

A woman who could walk and talk circles around the Doctor long enough to handcuff him to a pole and steal his show, managing to render him speechless and saving the day all at the same time! This was simply not done. And not borne in silence.

"Oi!" cried Rose, finally having had enough of the woman's antics. "Just who do you think you are, insulting the Doctor like that?"

"Rose – " the Doctor moved towards the blonde girl, trying to placate her.

River froze, her smirk falling off her lips. "You're Rose," she said slowly.

"Yes! Yes, I am! I'm Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, that's me! And who are you?"

The woman took a deep breath. "Professor River Song, University of – "

"No, no, who are you to the Doctor?"

"That's what I would like to know, too!" Jackie pitched in from behind her daughter, brimming with indignation. "You waltz in through a strange light, act like you've a right to do anything and drop off innuendo left, right and centre! Just who the hell are you?"

River clammed up, staring at the other woman in terse silence. She was rescued by, out of all people, the duplicate Doctor.

"Spoilers, right?" he quipped. "She can't tell you without severely altering the timeline."

Rose turned to him with pleading eyes. "But what does that even mean?"

"It means," said River patiently, "that foreknowledge is dangerous and I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be dead, or at least I think I am, and yet I'm here, alive and well, meeting people I'm never supposed to meet, and my neural relay is still right here and working perfectly well!"

"Because it wasn't really your neural relay in the first place, dear," said a voice from behind them.

"What?" cried River, whirling around.

A hologram of a young, floppy-haired man in tweed and a bow-tie appeared to be programmed into a large sonic screwdriver, which was lying innocently upon a blue book next to the TARDIS door. The man grinned and rocked back on his feet.

"Hi honey, I'm home!"


	3. Part Two

**A/N: **Thank you for your amazing response! :D I hope you enjoy this instalment!:D

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><p><strong>Spoilers!<strong>

_By Mizuki_

**Part Two**

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><p>"Hi honey, I'm home!"<p>

"And what sort of time do you call _this_?" River snarled in disbelief. "Are you out of your bloody mind?"

"What?" called the Doctor, popping his glasses on his nose. "Is that - ? No!... A _bow-tie_?"

"Hey!" protested the hologram. "Bow-ties are cool!"

River apparently didn't care. "What did you do? Do you have any idea of what you're doing? It was a fixed point in time! And now you're messing with your own personal timeline, too!"

"No, no, no, dear, it wasn't fixed! It wasn't fixed at all, it only looked that way from the outside!" the transparent man exclaimed in delight. "See, I didn't actually see you burn, because the light was so bright that I had to turn away! I didn't see what actually happened to you at all!"

"Is that – " said Rose in a hushed voice. "Is that you, Doctor?... So you've changed again in the future..."

"Into a baby!" laughed Jack. "I swear, Doc, you get younger every day!"

But the hologram didn't appear to hear them at all. He carried on with his prattling as if no one had spoken.

"And besides, it wasn't actually me who did the rescuing this time, River! It's all Sexy's doing! My brilliant, amazing Sexy!"

The name echoed in the TARDIS and the console thrummed humbly in response. The Doctor turned towards it with a look of wonder, his mouth falling open.

"She was the one who saved me?" River asked incredulously, and then felt herself be enveloped in the ship's loving presence. She closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh of happiness, letting herself sink into the virtual hug with all of her mind. "_Thank you._"

"Oh, it was the least she could do after what you did in Berlin," said the hologram with a pleasant smile, successfully snapping her out of her daze.

"Sweetie, can we not go back to this?" she interjected, alarmed. "This isn't the time for spo - "

"Why shouldn't we? You have nothing to be ashamed of. And Sexy concurs! It was bloody dangerous and you shouldn't have done it, but it was also bloody marvellous, too. It's not every day that one dies from a kiss and then wakes up from the dead with another kiss, and finds out that his killer had given him all of her remaining regenerations. I felt sort of like Snow White!"

"What?" exclaimed both Doctors and Donna in perfect synchrony. The three of them turned towards River with accusatory eyes.

"Regenerations?" asked the Doctor.

"Killer?" demanded the duplicate.

"_Snow White_?" cried Donna.

"Or Sleeping Beauty – oh, I _like_ that!"

River pressed her hand to her forehead. "Sweetie, would you please stop with the damn spoilers! What on earth are you doing?"

He didn't appear to hear her, or the meta-crisis trio, at all. "Anyway, it wasn't you that I uploaded into the system, it was actually Anita! She, the Daves and Miss Evangelista are all happily saved! Isn't that great?"

"Is it? Is it really? It's only half a life, after all. I think I'd rather die than live my life in that pretty, virtual cage. I've had enough of prisons for ten lifetimes! And I spent that time because of you, at your damn request and I barely got out and you were going to upload me into another one? Without my permission?"

The hologram visibly blanched. "Now, River, I was doing the best that I could think of at the time, really – "

"At the time? At the time? It was you, the real you, I mean, the older you, who put the bloody device into the screwdriver! You should have known by then that I would hate being artificially preserved like that!"

"It wasn't me who upgraded the screwdriver, actually, I only gave it to you – and besides, even so, I couldn't just simply let you die!"

"But I was already dead! I had to die! And you decided to play god again, didn't you? Against my will!"

And then, unexpectedly, the hologram got angry. "Look who's talking! You were going to sacrifice billions on billions of lives so that you wouldn't have to kill me! All of time, River! Remember that? Time was dying, all because of you and your 'fixed points can be rewritten'! Who _told_ you that?"

"That was because you didn't trust me!"

"Trust you? Hah! How was I supposed to know that you were River Song yet? That you've overridden the conditioning to kill me?"

River's features twisted in pain as everyone listened in rapt attention.

"Melody Pond died in Berlin," she said softly.

The hologram calmed down and smiled at her with affection. "I know that now. I knew it then atop of the pyramid, that's why I decided to marry you."

"What...?" came Rose's gasp.

River choked on a bitter laugh. "Shortened, battlefield version? Is there really such a thing?"

"'Course there is!"

"Sweetie, don't be stupid, of course there isn't."

"Sure there is! It was a perfectly valid, Gallifreyan handfasting – "

"Oh, stop it! I've read up about Gallifreyan customs, and there was no 'handfasting' involved in real weddings... Besides, seriously? Marriage by _bow-tie_?"

"_Bow-tie_?" repeated the Doctor.

"Hey!" cried the hologram, "Bow-ties are – "

" – not cool! Admit it! You just used it as a ruse! You had absolutely no plans of marrying me, hell, no plans of telling me that you had a way out! If I hadn't forced your hand and made you tell me, you were just going to leave, letting me believe that I have killed the man I loved!"

A long, dull silence filled the TARDIS console room, as some of the confusing dialogue went over the audience's heads, and some of it registered as extremely cruel and cold. Disappointed and accusatory glares fell on the hologram, but he didn't appear to see it at all, lost in his own indecipherable expression.

"River," he said eventually. "I've peeked into that blasted diary of yours. Before I went to Darillium, I made certain that there weren't any meetings between us that I've missed. I double checked. I triple checked! There was not one adventure left for me, River. So I took the screwdriver and took you to the Singing Towers, because there was nothing else that I could do. And then I headed off to Utah. So yes, I was going to leave. I wasn't going to see you ever again. I'm sorry for not trusting you, I really am. If it makes any difference, I really thought you wouldn't remember any of it."

River stared at him quietly, eyes brimming with emotion. "So what now? Where does that leave us?"

A brilliant smile bloomed on the hologram's face. "I was thinking... Since you are officially dead... And I am officially dead... And yet we're both still alive... Why don't we... you know... chuck those blasted diaries and try for linear this time? You know... as in... together... in the TARDIS... you know? You and me?"

She didn't answer for a long time, scrutinizing him with an unreadable expression. When she spoke, it was in a low, cold voice.

"And what if I say no?"

Rose, who had been listening to their conversation through a haze of her own pain, flinched in shock. Thousands of thoughts flashed through her mind, none of them pleasant, outrage and envy blinding her to anything apart from the grimace of grief on the hologram's face. How dare this – this – infuriating woman – how dare she refuse? How dare she spit in his face like that? It was the Doctor! The most amazing man Rose had ever met – would ever meet – and this woman, this maddening, curly-haired nobody, had managed to make him marry her – marry her! – and here she was, refusing him! If Rose had had the chance to – she would have – she would have stayed forever with him. Forever! Because he was the Doctor, so wonderful and lonely and sad – and she couldn't possibly imagine how could anyone be cruel enough to just refuse him when he went and put his hearts out there like this! Feeling tears stinging her eyes, Rose watched as the hologram's face morphed into a picture of the bleakest resignation.

"It's your choice, River," he said eventually, looking down. "So I guess this is good bye then, after all? Right, well. I'm really glad that you're alive. Tell your parents I said hi, will you? And I'm sorry. For wreaking up all of your lives. Oh, but, I forgot, they don't know I'm alive, do they? Poor, poor Ponds, the boy and girl who waited... Who stopped waiting. I saw that poster – Petrichor perfume? Amy's amazing like that, isn't she – they're all brilliant, all of them, they do some really great things after I leave them... And what are you going to do, River? Oh, I bet you're going to be an amazing professor, you'll make all of your students fall in love with you, won't you – "

"Doctor – "

"- you'll make your name known as a magnificent scholar and you'll discover so many great things – "

"Doctor, I told them."

" – and you'll look – what?"

"I told them. I told them that you were alive. Right after I climbed out of the Byzantium. So you can come visit them if you like. I'd love to tease mother – you should have seen her face when she realized she was your mother-in-law."

"Mother-in-law," he repeated, wonder colouring his voice. "I have a mother-in-law! And Rory! I have a father-in-law, too! Who's technically actually older than me!" he beamed. "This is brilliant! We have to go visit and celebrate! There's got to be dancing, you said that I always dance at weddings and I didn't dance at ours, now, did I – oh. Right. Sorry. You don't believe we got married at all – hang on! You told me you were married!"

"Well, you didn't even ask me! 'As you're told'? What kind of proposal is that?"

"I did so ask you! I asked if you were married, and then you asked if I was asking, and I said yes, and you said yes!"

"Nope, I'm not getting it," Mickey said under his breath.

"Actually, neither am I, and I can't believe I'm agreeing with you on anything," grumbled Jack.

The human Doctor leaned back against one of the branching pillars, highly amused, and a bit torn whether he was relieved or disappointed that what he was watching was no longer part of his future. This curly-haired beast of a woman was unmentionably annoying, but there was something intriguing in the level of trust she had managed to attain from him in the future – from the other Doctor, at least. It was also very entertaining to watch his future self – the other Doctor's future self – squabble with her like an old married couple. His amusement flickered out like a flame immediately when his eyes spied Rose.

She was standing next to the console, hands gripping its edge, face pallid and wet with tears. His single heart went out to her, but there wasn't really anything he could do. How could he reassure her in any way, when he wasn't quite sorted himself? He could remember the despair he'd felt when River had connected the cables, but now felt bare and raw, knowing that this particular future had been closed to him. Though extremely annoying, that woman had carried with her a hope for a better tomorrow. A tomorrow that wasn't going to be his. What was going to happen to him, then?

His musings were interrupted by Donna, who nudged him in the side.

"He looks sort of happy, doesn't he?" she said in disbelief. "She was annoying as hell when we met her, but now that he's on the same page with her, it seems like he's enjoying it."

The human Doctor hummed noncommittally in reply.

Because what was the most unsettling, was that the hologram did look almost happy (and devastated at the same time). And that was another ambiguous needle up his single heart.

"Will someone please just explain what the bloody hell is going on?" came a sudden screech, cutting through the questionably-married couple's argument.

River whirled around, her eyes widening as she remembered where she was and who she was with. She'd been so distracted by her hurt and resentment and the opportunity to voice them to the correct version of the Doctor, that she'd completely tuned out her surroundings. Judging by Jackie's murderous glare, this had been a huge mistake.

"Who are you?" demanded the platinum blonde. "And who is he?"

"Jackie!" called the Doctor – the real one – the present one – the Time Lord one – just how many of him were on the TARDIS at the moment, anyway? – angry and shaken, half out of his depth and half furious as a bee. He turned to River and the hologram. "What do you two think you're doing? You're interfering with space-time continuum! Couldn't you have your – your – your _quarrel_ – in a more appropriate place?"

Mickey snorted. "When do you do anything that's appropriate?"

"Mickey!" the Doctor exclaimed, appalled.

"He does have a point," said Martha, her face splitting into a grin.

"Not you too!"

"So let me get this straight," Sarah Jane piped up, addressing River. "You're his wife from the future, whom he's supposedly watched die quite recently, and he's the future Doctor, whom you'd supposedly killed, but he somehow survived, but for which you still served time in prison?"

River blinked. "Is it too late to plead spoilers?"

"Plead spoilers?" asked the hologram, bemused. "Whatever for? You can't possibly have any more secrets from me!"

Momentarily distracted from the brewing timeline disaster, River smirked.

"Oh, sweetie, you never learn, I always have se – wait. What did you just say?"

"There can't be any more spoilers between us! I quadruple checked that diary! I read it backwards, forwards and sideways! In both directions!"

She frowned. "Doctor, you do realize that I'm standing in the TARDIS with all of your friends, fresh out of the Medusa Cascade, don't you?"

"Wait, what?" he asked in surprise, deflating from his outrage, and the hologram blurred as he started moving. A piece of paper appeared in his hands. "What? That wasn't on the transcript before!"

"Ooh!" cried Martha, beginning to understand.

"Transcript? So you mean that you couldn't actually hear what I was saying?"

"Well of course I couldn't, it's not a bloody communicator, it's a recording! You think you're so smart and you couldn't figure that one out? And what do you mean, the Medusa Cascade? But that means - !"

"I'm afraid it does!" she snapped. "All of your recent friends are here! All of them!"

"But - ! Sexy, what on earth were you thinking? This could blow up my whole time stream! Foreknowledge is _dangerous_!" he paled. "And all the things I've said... River, why didn't you stop me!"

"Stop it, both of you!" ordered the Doctor. "Right now we need to fix this mess – "

" – before time collapses again! This is impossible, I can't have met you at the Medusa Cascade, I met you again when you jumped out of a spaceship and I was already at my eleventh face!"

The Doctor jerked as if slapped.

"Sweetie, just shut up!"

"Oh. Right. Spoilers. Right," the hologram mumbled, chagrined, scratching his cheek. "Right, then, what are we going to do?"

"You!" the Doctor growled, pointing at River. "Are going to leave, _immediately_. And get that horrid screwdriver out of my TARDIS! And the diary, too!" His hands went up to tear at his hair in extreme vexation. "And I'm going to wipe all of your memories of this, and then figure out how to do the same to myself!"

An uproar of raised, indignant voices rose in response to his words.

"You're not wiping _my_ mind, Sunshine!" cried Donna.

"There's _no_ way I'm going to let you make me forget this!" sniggered Mickey.

"You're not getting anywhere near my head!" screeched Jackie.

"Wiping our memories, are you serious?" yelled Martha.

"Doctor, is that really necessary?" asked Sarah Jane.

"I'm not letting you poke around my mind, Doctor, 'cause you might just like what you see, and where will that leave our gorgeous professor?" drawled Jack.

"All of you, listen to me!" shouted the Doctor, already operating beyond all acknowledged levels of frustration. "This was not supposed to happen! We shouldn't have heard any of – of – ofthatconversation – otherwise I'd have known – known that – that – "

"Oh, but you don't need to wipe all of their memories, sweetie."

"What?"

"The only one who has to forget is you, Doctor."

"Oh, of course!" cried the hologram in delight. "River, seems like you have it all figured out, I'm sure you'll manage famously. In fact, I'm certain of it, because I can't remember ever seeing you before the whole Weeping Angels affair – "

"Weeping Angels?" yelped the Doctor. River rolled her eyes, thoroughly exasperated.

"Well, I'll be going then, I'm sure you'll do great, but good luck anyway, because you know, someone once told me that I'm 'hard work young'," he followed that with a giggle, and then halfway through, the image flickered and disappeared like a switched off telly. River stared at it in disbelief, before letting out a growl of frustration.

"Oh, I _hate_ you sometimes!"

A faint chuckle floated through the TARDIS and the echo of his voice sang, "_No, you don't!_"

The Doctor followed that exchange with wide eyes. "What do you mean, only me – but who would – No!"

"Yes, me. So be a dear and stand still. Or better yet, lie down."


	4. Part Three

**A/N:** Hi guys! Sorry for the long wait - between a trip to Canada and a stay at a hospital there wasn't really that much time for writing... But now I'm hoping it's all going to calm down (once I finish my BA thesis xD). So here you are, the next installment :)

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><p><strong>Spoilers!<strong>

_By Mizuki_

**Part Three**

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><p>"No, no, no, <em>no<em> – you can't just – " the Doctor blurted out before he could think better of it. His mind was a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts and, for the first time in – well, ever – he found it impossible to think on his feet. The otherwise perfectly reasonable – thank you very much – mumbo-jumbo of his brain was now in complete disarray, thanks to the most infuriating – _fascinating_ – and improbable creature he had ever met.

Because River Song couldn't possibly be psychic enough to tamper with _his _memories! To do that, she would, first of all, need his permission, and, besides, she'd need to have a thorough and intimate knowledge of his mind, which was ridiculous, because she couldn't have possibly connected with him on _that_ level, despite the fact that she somehow managed to know his name! There was absolutely no way he was ever willingly entering that level of intimacy with anyone, much less a woman he knew nothing about, who was clearly dangerous and untrustworthy, and who was out for his blood, no less!

If _this_ was what was in store for him in the future, then perhaps it was better that it had been spoiled and therefore hopefully rewritten out of existence, because the only possible reason he'd have had to get entangled in this radiant curly haired woman was that he hadn't known better... Now that he did, he could avoid her, steer clear out of her way, let her stampede through the universe on _expeditions_, burying herself in ruins and skeletons while he revelled in history while it was being made.

Except... if she was who she said she was, if the TARDIS really valued her so much, if the hologram had really been his future self... if she could _regenerate_... if he could really, honestly open his mind to her... then that meant that he was no longer alone.

And therein lay the crux of the matter.

The Doctor was good at denial, but he wasn't stupid. He didn't want to avoid River Song because she was an archaeologist. He didn't want to avoid her because he thought this whole situation reeked of such odious concepts as predestination and coerced emotional obligation (because, honestly, could one really truly feel something out of their own volition after they have been told they would feel it anyway?). He didn't even want to avoid her because there was a distinct possibility that time would be rewritten and she would kill him for real. No, he wanted to avoid her because he was _angry_.

He was furious. Absolutely livid. Incandescent with rage.

Because it hurt so damn much to lose them. Because he knew that Sarah Jane, Jack, Martha and Mickey would leave him to lead their own lives, as they should. Because he hated his other self so much that he had to banish him to the parallel universe. Because he loved him so much he had to give him Rose to fix him. Because he knew that Donna would die if she remembered him.

He knew all of this and the knowledge was crushing his hearts, severing them into four tattered pieces, and he couldn't, he just _couldn't_, take any more of this pain right now.

And here she was, waltzing into his life again, bringing with her unimaginable promises, just like the last time, only to take them all away and taint their memory with bitterness and tragedy. At the Library she'd dangled the carrot of companionship, of love and understanding, of _marriage_, for goodness' sake, right under his nose, and then she yanked it away by dying, and all he could think of was: _"all the time we've been together, you knew I was coming here_"... Whatever happiness he would achieve with her would always, _always_, be marred by this knowledge, by this memory of her connecting the cables and of the single tear on cheek. And now she was doing it again! She'd survived, but she wanted to take that knowledge away from him, she _wanted_ him to suffer, to remember her death every time they met. Yet, as horrible as all of it was, what angered him the most was that out of this convoluted story the only thing he would ultimately get was another loss and separation.

Because he could objectively understand why she wouldn't want him after all he'd put her through, but he was tired of being objective, of being the one who faced the most difficult decisions, of being the one with the most responsibility. He wanted to be selfish, he wanted to have the right to make mistakes, he wanted to have someone who would forgive him, always and completely...

But she was going to walk away simply because he'd made a mistake.

He was about to tell her to get out of his ship and out of his life and to just _leave him alone_, but then he felt something at the back of his mind, a gentle probing, more like a caress, really, spreading a soothing balm over his frazzled nerves. It was... yes, yes it was, the TARDIS, she was... she was telling him that it was okay. She was asking him to trust River. Why? _Why?_ Logically, there was absolutely nothing trustworthy about this woman. Nothing at all. So why was the TARDIS… And why was he actually considering…

"Sweetie, there really isn't another way, and you know it."

Her voice was soft, and sort of hypnotizing, and why was he comparing her to a Siren, really, this was not the time...!

She took a step forward, raising both of her hands towards him. He flinched away, feeling oddly vulnerable.

"No, stop it – you can't let me believe..."

River's face crumpled. "Oh, Doctor, I'm so sorry... but you know I have to do this."

"River - "

"Hush, now," she smiled sadly. "The no-spoilers rule was there for a reason. You can't just peek at the end of the story, you have to live it through."

He stared at her for a long moment, and then squared his shoulders and lowered his head in concession. She gave him another smile before closing the distance between them and pressing her fingers to his temples. For a second they locked eyes and then the Doctor's rolled back into his head and his lanky frame collapsed into her waiting arms. She was surprisingly strong; without so much as a huff, she lowered him to the TARDIS floor.

The human Doctor and Jack, who had moved forward to catch the unconscious Time Lord, fell awkwardly back.

"What have you done to him?" asked Rose, her voice strangled. This was just about as much courage as she could muster; even though she wanted to, she didn't dare rush to his side as she would have just ten minutes ago. It felt wrong now. She felt out of place, somehow. This was no longer her Doctor, but a man who loved – will love – will have loved – another woman.

The very same woman who now looked at her with sympathy. Rose couldn't help but bristle in anger. She didn't need her pity!

"I wiped his memories of seeing me here," she explained gently. "Too much foreknowledge is dangerous. He cannot know I survived the Library."

"Isn't that just too cruel?" asked Martha, beating Rose to the same question.

"The universe is cruel," River answered simply. "If it wasn't, Rose never would have left him, wouldn't you?"

Rose let out a shaky breath. "No, I wouldn't."

"And if you stayed with him, he never would have crashed into my mother's garden when she was seven. He never would have returned when she was twenty one. He never would have burst out of the cake at my father's stag night – "

" – burst out of a cake?" exclaimed Jack gleefully. River gave him a wink.

" – and maybe I never would have been what I am. I would have been a simple little girl, a Melody Williams, a geography teacher, living her life in sleepy Leadworth, never meeting the Doctor at all."

For a moment, Rose selfishly thought that it would have been better. Better for him, surely...

"Alas, the universe _is_ cruel."

Rose looked away, ashamed. Suddenly, she couldn't look this woman in the eye.

"Right," River said after a beat. "I need to get going before he wakes up." She moved quickly and purposefully around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers.

"You can fly the TARDIS?" the human Doctor exclaimed in disbelief. River gave him a smile over her shoulder.

"I am her child – she taught me how."

"Her chi – _what_?"

Her grin became almost feral. "Four words, Doctor. TARDIS. Vortex. Wedding night."

Jack guffawed with uncontrollable laughter while the human Doctor choked on his next words.

"So your parents – on the _TARDIS_?" asked Martha, incredulous. River only laughed. "But fooling around! On the _TARDIS_!"

"In flight."

"But sex! On the _TARDIS_!"

"Is that really so hard to believe?"

"Frankly, yes!"

River only chuckled. "So naive... Right! We've landed. I'll take my leave then..."

"Landed? But we haven't landed!" the human Doctor scoffed, folding his arms.

"Of course we've landed."

"What? But it didn't make that stupid noise," said Mickey.

River shook her head in exasperation. "It's not supposed to make that noise. It's the brakes, he keeps leaving them on! Blimey, sometimes I wonder how he manages to get anywhere at all!"

Donna snorted. "He sort of is a really bad driver, isn't he?"

"Oh, I absolutely know what you mean!" Sarah Jane laughed. "He never gets where he wants to!"

"Oi! It's not my fault, it's the TARDIS!"

"Excuses, excuses," River grinned. "On that note, I think I'm going to say goodbye to you all... It was really lovely to meet you."

"Aren't you going to wipe our memories, too, Professor?" asked Jack. She shook her head.

"There's no need, is there? I trust you not to tell him anything." She looked around at their faces intently. "Unless you want me to?"

They didn't, of course, but she had to be absolutely certain. "Rose?"

"What?"

"Are you sure you don't want to forget?"

The blonde girl gave her an offended glare. "You think I can't handle it?"

"Of course not – "

"Then stop presuming."

"Of course. I apologize."

Rose looked away again. River pursed her lips and then turned towards the exit, collecting the blue diary and the infernal screwdriver on her way. She was almost at the door when Rose spoke up again.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," River answered simply.

"To the Doctor?"

The older woman's face was stony. "No."

"Why not?" Rose demanded fiercely. "Whyever _not_?"

"Because I'm angry with him right now," River bit out. "And I don't really want to see him."

"But you're going to go back to him once you cool down, right?"

River took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "I don't know."

"See," Rose growled. "This is where I stop understanding! How can you not know! How can you abandon him!"

River regarded her tensely, but her face was otherwise blank of emotion. "What you have to realize, Rose, is that life with the Doctor is very demanding – "

"It's not!"

" – you have to forget about everything you are and adapt yourself to him. And my whole life has been centred around him. I am the daughter of his companions, conceived on the TARDIS, I have partial Time Lord DNA... As a child I was kidnapped, brainwashed and moulded into a perfect weapon so that I could kill him... And then I escaped and found my parents and I had to listen to my mother's childhood stories about him...

"When I finally met him, I killed him. Then I sacrificed all my remaining regenerations to bring him back, because he told me he loved me and I just had to _try_... But then he dropped me off in the fifty second century with only a blue book and the pilfered clothes on my back... So I figured I would look for him in the past and enrolled into an archaeology course at university. I wrote an entire PhD dissertation on him alone... All those stories and myths, scattered throughout history... But then when I was just about ready to move on, to start exploring the rest of the universe and all the stories, my childhood captors caught up with me and used me as a weapon again. I had to literally break time for him to acknowledge me as an equal and let me know I wasn't really going to kill him. But no one else knew the truth and I was arrested and sentenced to a lifetime in prison. Twelve thousand consecutive lifetimes! For a crime I didn't commit! But I served my time, I stayed in prison, blackening my name and giving up my career, all for him! All so that his secret would stay safe. When I miraculously managed to earn my pardon and somehow became a professor, my first expedition turned out to be to a place where I thought I was going to die. I was going to die so he wouldn't have to."

Throughout her tale her voice managed to stay mostly calm and composed, but now it broke and the hurt finally seeped through.

"And then he decided to upload me to an eternal prison without him. As my reward."

Silence fell in the TARDIS. No one really knew what to say, and least of all Rose, who felt more ashamed of herself than ever.

"I still love him," River concluded quietly. "But I really don't know if I want to stay with him anymore."

Then she closed her eyes as if in pain, and opened the TARDIS door with a flourish.

The floppy-haired man in tweed and bow-tie fell inside with a gasp, crashing to the floor in a flurry of limbs. Gasps of shock resonated through the console room, but River only looked down on him, unsmiling and unsurprised.

"Hello, sweetie," she said coolly.

"River..." he gasped, scrambling from the floor. "Look, it's – "

"No time," she interrupted. "You're going to wake up any moment now. Let's go. We don't belong here. And I really need to get out of this blasted spacesuit."

With that she grabbed his arm and fairly pushed him outside, but before she followed, she turned back one more time and smiled. "Goodbye, everyone. It was very nice to meet you."

The second the door closed behind her, the Doctor began to stir. His human counterpart literally flew at the console and threw the TARDIS back into space, before the Time Lord fully regained his senses.

"Ow... What happened?"

"Don't you remember?" the meta-crisis exclaimed cheerfully. "Donna was so enthusiastic she pushed you into the coral and knocked you out cold!"

"Really, Donna..." mumbled the Doctor, exasperated.

"Oi, watch it!"

"So, where were we?" he asked, springing back to his feet. A sudden pain erupted in his head and he hissed. "Ow, Donna, that really hurt!"

Momentarily distracted, he didn't notice the other Doctor sending warning signs at all of his companions. He did notice, however, that everyone seemed a bit out of sorts.

"What's wrong with you? We've just saved the world!"

Slowly, tentative grins broke out on their faces and they resumed their joyous hugging. Their faces were just a little bit more thoughtful than they should be, but the Doctor decided to ignore it. He had far worse things to think about right now...

"Right! Let's get you all home, shall we?"


End file.
